The invention is directed to an improved paging system. In particular the invention is directed to a combination of a wide area paging system with a plurality of localized paging systems in a master-slave relationship. The localized paging systems are operated simultaneously in coordination with the wide area paging system. Both the wide area and the localized paging systems operate at the same RF frequency.
Hospital communication networks have traditionally been plagued by a lack of RF spectrum. In some systems an individual is sometimes required to carry two or more pagers. One pager is connected into a local system (i.e. a hospital) while the second pager is connected into a second system which probably is a wide area system to cover the individual in his/her car or home. The wide area system alone is insufficient in a hospital environment where RF interference and other undesirable characteristics, such as thick walls, cause the wide area system to sometimes be too weak to reach the pager when the pager user is inside the hospital. Therefore, today one RF channel is utilized for the wide area system while a second RF channel is utilized for each of the local RF channel systems.
It is the object of this invention to better utilize the RF channels available in a given area by creating a master-slave relationship between the wide area and local area paging systems so only a single RF channel is needed. The wide area system transmits tone only and data pages during time periods wasted in many of today's systems.
A further object of the invention is to replace a plurality of pagers with a single pager operating on a single frequency and capable of interfacing with both the local system and the wide area system.